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Five Australians: Charles Perkins fights for racial equality

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Old photo of hand holding protest sign that reads 'Keep Nancy, deport Opperman'
Five Australians: Charles Perkins fights for racial equality

SUBJECTS:  Civics and Citizenship, History

YEARS:  9–10


Why is Charles Perkins remembered as a significant leader in the struggle for the rights of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples?

In this clip, he looks back on two campaigns that brought him to public attention in the 1960s and were part of a wider struggle to end racial discrimination in Australia.

This clip is one in a series of two.


Things to think about

  1. 1.What was the situation for Indigenous Australians and non-Europeans in Australia when Charles Perkins gave this interview in January 1967? Both these groups experienced several forms of discrimination. Indigenous Australians were still denied many rights taken for granted by other Australians. The White Australia policy, which had prevented non-Europeans from migrating to Australia, had only just begun to be softened.
  2. 2.In 1965, Charles Perkins led a group of university students on a bus tour around northern New South Wales towns to protest against racial discrimination. How does he describe the attitudes that the protestors encountered? Later that year Perkins played a key role in the campaign to prevent the deportation of a six-year-old Indian Fijian girl, Nancy Prasad. How and why did he try to help her?
  3. 3.The 1965 Freedom Ride around northern New South Wales was inspired by the 1961 Freedom Rides that exposed terrible racism in the USA. Use appropriate sources to find out who besides Charles Perkins was involved in the 1965 Freedom Ride, the towns they visited, the forms of discrimination they exposed, the ways in which townspeople reacted, and what was achieved.
  4. 4.In recalling the Nancy Prasad case, Charles Perkins says, 'It was just because she was coloured that she was being deported'. Discuss the Nancy Prasad case and develop at least five questions that you could use to guide a historical investigation into the case and its significance in contributing to changes in the White Australia policy.



Date of broadcast: 1967


Copyright

Metadata © Australian Broadcasting Corporation and Education Services Australia Ltd 2012 (except where otherwise indicated). Digital content © Australian Broadcasting Corporation (except where otherwise indicated). Video © Australian Broadcasting Corporation (except where otherwise indicated). All images copyright their respective owners. Text © Australian Broadcasting Corporation and Education Services Australia is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License (CC BY-SA 4.0).

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